It was on a day not unlike this – dark and cold with low skies – that I began writing Don’t Bite the Messenger. Winter is not nice, even in one of the more temperate parts of Alaska. The entire world goes greyscape. Even the gnarled and hunched spruce trees, which keep their needles year-round, fade from green to charcoal.

Color, absent during the day or muted by falling snow, blooms at night. Street lights. Business signage. The vivid red of brake lights. And, when conditions are just right, a hazy pink or orange glow brighter even than most of our days.

I was born and raised in Alaska, but after a few weeks of these conditions, I wanted out. Out of the cold, the dark, and the knowledge that the environment could kill me if I gave it a few hours. But I couldn’t leave.

So I invented someone who could.
Enter Sydney Kildare. Bright, talented, independent because she’s had to be. She escaped a rotten childhood and became a runner, a human courier for the vampires that have insinuated themselves into Alaska. Their talents provide the state with money and jobs, which in turn partially regulates and partially turns a blind eye to their appetites.

But Syd’s eyes are wide open. Runners tend to die young, from the job or what the job drives them to, and she’s made a plan to extract herself and spend the rest of her days on a tropical, fang-free island. But when a routine call lands her in the middle of a ruthless vampire feud, she’ll have to call on all her skills and the help of a secretive ally to survive.

There’s nothing quite so fun as blowing up fictional buildings in the city in which you live, or watching your character fight for the freedom you’d love to have.

Don’t Bite the Messenger will release as an e-Book on 1.16.12. It is available now for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.